7 B.C. athletes who competed at the 1954 Empire Games

Aug. 7, 1954 still stands as the single most-significant track and field day ever experienced by Doug Clement.

That’s a remarkable statement, given the thousands of track meets he has witnessed since.

Barely 21 at the time, Clement saw Roger Bannister defeat John Landy in the much-anticipated Miracle Mile before watching British marathoner Jim Peters famously collapse on Empire Stadium’s track before he could finish the race.

Then Clement stepped onto the track himself and captured a silver medal as part of Canada’s 4 x 440-yards relay team.

A memorable day indeed.

“The drama of Jim Peters alone was unbelievable,” said Clement, now a fit 81-year-old “retired” doctor who remains very active in B.C.’s track and field community along with his wife Diane, a former world-class athlete herself.

He won a track scholarship at the University of Oregon and competed in two Olympics and two Commonwealth Games, but Clement describes himself as a “journeyman” athlete who felt like a hero in Vancouver 60 years ago.

“Suddenly you were recognized and accepted as being something big, right in your hometown,” he said.

Clement, who was born in Montreal and raised in Vancouver, compares the atmosphere surrounding the British Empire and Commonwealth Games with the positive vibe that accompanied the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

“If there was any infighting about holding the Games, it disappeared once the actual event started,” he said. “Vancouver was introduced to the world and the world was introduced to Vancouver.”

Clement feels the 1954 Games helped the city evolve from its former status as a quiet provincial community with a distinct bias toward all things British.

“At the time, Vancouver was really a logging and fishing town, and when loggers came into the city for the weekend, it was a zoo downtown,” he said. “I think the Games brought us into a new era, and I don’t know if it’s recognized by the public that way because there are very few of us (Games participants) around now.”

Doug Kyle

Six-mile run and three-mile run — didn’t finish either event

Doug Kyle wanted to make a big splash in his first major international race.

But his aggressive decision to stick with the leaders during the six-mile run at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games cost him dearly.

“I was determined to stay up with the leaders or die trying, and I almost died trying,” Kyle said. “After five miles, I just passed right out and flopped onto the infield and it took me half an hour to recover.”

After receiving oxygen from attendants on the scene and resting for two days, the then-22-year-old Canadian champion distance runner got the green light to run the three-mile race — but once again, he failed to finish.

Kyle, who graduated from the University of B.C. just before the Games began, lapped almost every runner in winning the six-mile race at the Canadian trials that year, but his lack of international experience clearly worked against him on race day during the Empire Games.

He feels his experience in Vancouver that summer made him a much better runner, as he went on to represent Canada in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, and won silver and bronze medals at the 1959 Pan American Games.

“I hadn’t run internationally before, so I didn’t know the other runners,” Kyle said. “After seeing the quality of the competition, I was inspired to train harder and work harder and get more races in to get up to the level of those guys.”

He said most track athletes experience the thrill of their lives when they represent their country at a big event for the first time, and that’s exactly what happened for him in Vancouver.

“It was the biggest team Canada had ever sent to an Empire Games and there was a lot of hullabaloo around Vancouver, with so many functions going on to celebrate making the team,” Kyle said. “It was really an awe-inspiring thing to have so many great athletes coming to town, like (Roger) Bannister and (John) Landy. It was a fantastic experience.”

Helen (Stewart) Hunt

4 x 110-yards freestyle relay — silver medal

When you’re a 15-year-old Lord Byng high school student, it’s a big deal when people ask for your autograph.

That was Helen Hunt’s situation 60 years ago when the wide-eyed young freestyle swimmer, then Helen Stewart, represented Canada at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

“All the athletes were treated the same — it didn’t matter whether you won a medal or not,” she said. “People asked for autographs and that’s always a big thrill for a young person. You almost get used to it after two or three weeks, but after the Games ended, you came back to reality pretty quickly.”

Hunt has very fond memories of Vancouver in the summer of 1954 as the city was buzzing with excitement of the Games — her first major international meet.

“I remember how much fun it was because all my swimming friends were on the Canadian team as well,” she said. “The weather was fantastic and we had drivers who took us places and were treated royally. That was a lot of fun for a 15-year-old.”

Hunt trained twice a day while staying in the athletes village at the University of B.C., rested in the afternoon, and enjoyed great food in the dining hall at meal time.

She also recalls the swimming venue’s 5,000 seats always being filled while the competition was on.

Capturing a silver medal at home in front of family and friends at the outdoor Empire Pool at UBC literally served as a springboard to bigger and better things for Hunt.

She was keen to improve on the experience, and while training under the supervision of coach Howard Firby, Hunt went on to become Canadian woman swimmer of the year in 1955, 1956 and 1957 — at one point setting a world record in the 100-yard freestyle.

“My experience at those Games helped make me a better swimmer because then I got the chance to compete regularly against people from other countries,” Hunt said. “International competition is key to improving.”

Alice Whitty-Simicak

High jump — bronze medal

Alice Whitty-Simicak wasn’t exactly overwhelmed by the occasion.

Competing in front of 35,000 hometown fans at Empire Stadium was a huge thrill for the 20-year-old Vancouver high jumper, but she had already jumped in front of 80,000 fans at the Helsinki Olympics two years earlier.

So it was a calm, cool and collected Whitty, as she was then known, who finished third at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games with a jump of five feet, three inches — a result that still nags at her 60 years later.

“I feel I didn’t do as well as I should have,” she said. “I really expected to go higher because I had jumped higher in training about a month earlier, so I felt like I let myself down.”

Whitty-Simicak said allergy issues during that hot summer affected her performance.

But Whitty-Simicak said there was a bright side to the mildly disappointing result. The Canadian flag was raised at the medal ceremony, and she beat then-world-record-holder Sheila Lerwill from England, who finished fourth with a jump of five feet, two inches.

She also attracted the attention of legendary University of Oregon track and field coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman during the Games. He invited her to attend the university on a scholarship and she gladly accepted, transferring to Oregon from the University of B.C.

“He had everything at Oregon — all the facilities and support you needed to perform at your best,” Whitty-Simicak said.

The Magee high school grad remembers having a lot of fun in Vancouver that summer, attending special functions for the athletes and renewing acquaintances with international track stars such as two-time Olympic champion Australian sprinter Marjorie Jackson.

“I was young and it was a lot of fun to be with everybody,” Whitty-Simicak said. “The track group was pretty cohesive and we chummed around together a lot and kept in touch.”

Lenore (Fisher) Gilchrist

110-yard backstroke — fourth

3 x 110-yard medley relay — fifth

Lenore Gilchrist felt like she was living some kind of Hollywood movie.

The 17-year-old Ocean Falls swimmer came from a town with few cars — and here she was, cruising around sunny Vancouver in an open convertible.

Her future brother-in-law had driven up from California in a 1954 Chevy convertible to watch her compete in the British Empire and Commonwealth Games, and squired her around the city for a while.

“I remember going to White Spot and they came out with the trays and everything,” said Gilchrist, then known as Lenore Fisher. “I thought we were in Hollywood.”

The small-town girl came from a powerhouse Ocean Falls Swimming Club that sent seven swimmers to the 1954 Games — five who swam for Canada, one who represented Northern Ireland, and another who swam for British Guiana.

“It really showed that you didn’t have to live in the city to be a good athlete,” she said. “We had good coaching (from George Gate) and we all worked hard.”

Gilchrist wishes she had medalled at the Games — she missed by 7/10ths of a second — but has no negative memories of her 1954 experience in Vancouver.

“It was just all exciting,” she said. “We met other athletes we had read about in record books and we got to go to the different venues, and our families were here to see us compete.”

Even the food at the athletes village was good, with steak on the menu if you wanted it.

“They wanted us to eat steak. But I hated steak, so my meal of choice was almost anything else,” said Gilchrist, who has operated a Kitsilano swimsuit store — Splash Swim and Cruise — for the past 28 years.

She said Vancouverites truly embraced the Games, much like they did during the 2010 Olympics, but feels things were a lot less commercial 60 years ago.

“Vancouver was a smaller town then and people were really good at volunteering,” Gilchrist said. “They really wanted to entertain us so we’d have a good time. It was well organized and well planned.”

Glen Smith

Rowing Eights — gold medal

At age 23, Glen Smith was the “old man” on Canada’s men’s eights rowing crew that pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

Some 12,000 fans, including Prince Philip, watched in near-disbelief as eight University of B.C. athletes coached by Frank Read beat the heavily-favoured Thames Rowing Club crew from England by two and a half boat lengths on the Vedder Canal course in Chilliwack.

The stunning win came despite a disastrous start that saw the Canadian squad give the English rowers a length-and-a-half lead.

Smith credits his team’s superior fitness for overcoming that lead and rowing to a relatively easy victory on a course where they had to row against a current. A temporary dam built to negate the current washed out the day before the Games began.

“We were way fitter than they were,” Smith said. “They were probably better rowers, but we were a hell of a lot fitter.”

He recalls the post-race glory that accompanied the win as Canadians everywhere embraced the crew that had previously flown under the media radar.

“There were pictures of us in the paper every day, so we felt pretty important,” Smith said.

Prince Philip was clearly impressed by the Canadian rowers and invited them to compete in the 1955 Royal Henley Regatta, where they beat the world champion Russians before losing a close race to a Pennsylvania crew in the final.

Money to fund rowing athletes was hard to come by back then, but a joint UBC/Vancouver Rowing Club committee raised $25,000 to pay for the Henley trip.

Smith feels the 1954 Games kick-started Canada’s membership into the exclusive club of rowing elite countries, with coach Read as the driving force.

“Those Games were the start of Canada being a true rowing nation,” he said. “You think of all the great results the country had in the 1990s and 2000s, and it all started with Frank Read, in my opinion.”

Dave Stafford

Long jump — 11th place

Dave Stafford remembers it was hot on Aug. 3, 1954 — the day of the long jump final at Empire Stadium. Good jumping weather.

Like he did before every big meet, he cut his hair short, right down to almost nothing, to reduce any possible wind resistance.

But the best the 20-year-old Langley Secondary School grad could manage that day was just over 21 feet, well below the 22-feet plus he used to jump in high school.

“I wasn’t jumping well that day because I had a hamstring problem with my take-off leg,” Stafford said. “I wish I had won a medal, but there are only three of them. If you don’t make it on the day, that’s life.”

The affable athlete didn’t let the disappointing result ruin his British Empire and Commonwealth Games experience. Far from it.

“I remember all the fun we had,” Stafford said. “The New Zealanders and Australians were there, and they were real party people, the girls especially. We were young, you know.”

The 1954 Games were by far the biggest international event of Stafford’s competitive jumping career, which ended about a year later. Many memories linger.

Stafford, like everyone who was there that day, clearly recalls Roger Bannister and John Landy thrilling the world during the Miracle Mile and English runner Jim Peters wobbling around the track at the end of the marathon.

He still has an official Games program with the signatures of Bannister, Landy and the third-place finisher in the mile — Toronto’s Rich Ferguson.

“Being part of it stays with you,” he said. “To us, Empire was a huge stadium and it felt like mass hysteria whenever anything happened there.”

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7 B.C. athletes who competed at the 1954 Empire Games

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